ARP for Deaf Children

Eastbury Primary School’s Additional Resource Provision (ARP) for deaf children is part of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. The ARP offers 12 places for children with moderate, sever or profound hearing loss, and who have an Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP). There are specialist staff in the ARP to support the children including: Teachers of the Deaf (ToD), Communicators and Speech and Language Therapists.

The ARP offers individualised education to all the children and ensures that all needs are catered for. There are strong links with mainstream to ensure that the children receive a rich and balanced curriculum. Some of the children are in mainstream all day with a communicator for support. Some children have separate English and Maths sessions in the ARP in the morning with a ToD and join their mainstream peers in the afternoon for all other subjects, with a communicator.

The deaf children are involved in all mainstream activities, assemblies and trips. The ARP has additional trips to deaf events to ensure that the children have a strong understanding of deafness and their deaf identity.

Parents and carers play a large role in the ARP and are regularly consulted on decisions about their child’s education, targets and pupil passports. Parents and children are encouraged to be actively involved with annual reviews that take place yearly for children over the age of five and every six months for younger children.

There are also strong links with all other deaf ARPs in the borough to share good practice, plan visits and trips, and ensure smooth transition from Primary to Secondary school. This is achieved through termly meetings of the leaders of the ARPs from Five Elms and Eastbury Community School.